4 comments about Invisible Privilege: A Memoir About Race, Class, and Gender (Feminist Ethics).

1. "Invisible Privilege" is a multilayered book that I will enjoy reading more than once. It has the liveliness, humor, and candor of a good autobiography. But instead of merely telling one person's story, the author wears the analytical and critical lenses through which she views our society, to look at her own life -- without apology or mea culpa. She gives up the dearly held privilege of many of us "white liberals" to pretend that, in spite of the impact of race, class, and gender on American life, we somehow wriggled through unscathed, perhaps because of our own "natural" goodness. The author provides funny, poignant, eye-opening examples of how no one can rest on the laurels of being a good person with good intentions in this whirlwind society of ours. She is deepening the discussions of discrimination and exclusion, prejudice and hate, as well as of being human, and I look forward to her next book.



2. A very well-done combination of personal recollection and political insights. The questions of gender, race and class are often presented in an off-putting manner that only appeals to the already committed. Because of the genuiness and the clarity of this book, it can serve as an introduction to these areas for those who still have something to learn about them.



3. If you are entirely committed to viewing human destiny almost exclusively in terms of group identity, you will love this book. Rothenberg cheerfully acknowledges that she has no pretentions toward disinterested inquiry in her college courses or in her writing. She procedes from the assumption that racism and sexism are the underlying conditions of life in the United States and sets out to illustrate this. The book is an amusing compendium of the leisure-class totalitarian orientation and quasi-Marxiast group think that has become the status quo in American "higher" education.



4. I have to agree with the review before me, this book is purely a Marxist totalitarian charade with extremely one sided analogies.
   To Paula Rothenberg; if you hate the U.S.A. and freedom, then leave it for a communist country!

5 comments about Sudden Death, Overtime.

1. As a teacher in the United States, I was spellbound when reading this book. As a teacher, I cherish my students and would do anything for them, just like Dennis Courneya did all of his teaching career. I think teachers all over the United States should take the time to read this book. It goes to show how teachers, like Courneya, can have their devotion and love for their job and their students taken for granted in the blink of an eye. This is a true wake up call for all teachers and this book is a must read. I am appalled that this injustice has been allowed to go on in this nation. I hope Couneya finds peace in himself and his family. The girls that accused him of this should be ashamed of what they stand for. The town should be embarrassed of their morality. Read this book, you will be glad you did!!



2. I just finished reading the best book I have read in a long time: Sudden Death, Overtime! It is poignant and straightforward. Does this town really exist? I have always believed that the justice system needs an "overhaul" - this book just makes me more adamant in my belief. Hurray for Coach Courneya... stand tall. This book is a wonderful tribute to home, family, and those who try to teach our youth - an awesome responsibility. I am humbled by what Courneya had to endure.
   This is a must-read for everyone. Put it on your Christmas list.



3. Sudden Death Overtime is a spellbinding, compelling book that illustrates what should be unacceptable behavior by those involved in the legal system, including citizens on the jury.
   If "you" were Dennis Courneya, you would have expected far better by our judicial system. It is clear in the book that "intent" was never proved and that this man has been unjustly accused. The innocence and love with which he approached his teaching and coaching was rewarded with immature, youthful retaliation.
   While this incident is focused on teachers as coaches, it would be recommended reading for anyone who manages people. We could all be unfairly accused and find ourselves thrown into the black hole of Lady Justice, with no way out.



4. My wife and I both just finished Sudden Death, Overtime. Despite quite a few typographical errors, it is the most compelling and best book I have read in years. Why? My bias may show, but 1. I am a teacher; 2. I know Dennis Courneya; 3. I lived in the town of Hancock for 3 years and could picture almost all the people he wrote about; and 4. my wife's father was the superintendent of schools in Hancock at the time Dennis was hired. I found this book to be straight forward (although, at times the trial transcripts were a bit confusing--the girls, like, really, like should like get rid of, like, too many "likes" in their vocabulary) and not an over glorification of the author. After reading the book I really felt like I was smacked in the face because, unfortunately, this could happen to any of us. I was appalled at the lack of action and concern by the teacher's union (yes, I am a member!), as well as the judge, the jury, and everyone else that was involved in this travesty. I also lost a lot of respect that I had for superintendent Larson and the school counselor, Carol Johnson. I applaud Dennis and his fortitude in surviving the trial, the prison, and everything else he has been subjected to. I'm not sure I would have survived it. I would LOVE to see this as a TV movie!



5. 'Sudden Death, Overtime' was one of the most inspirational books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It was colorfully written and so attaching that I read for hours just to realize I had finished the book in one sitting.
   It not only depicts the life of Dennis Courneya, which is so intriguing and inspirational that it deserves its own story, but the book also incorporates a tragedy.
   Anyone that read this book who knew of the TRUE 'Sudden Death, Overtime' and believed justice was served, and still believes that justice was served, has as horrible a moral character as some of the characters you will read about, but they also depict what is wrong in our society today. I challenge those who believed it to be a justice and have not read the book, to read the book, and walk away from it with a clean conscious.
   I was not only honored to be among some of the first readers to read this book, but I was also thankful that I did. A must read!

4 comments about Arctic Schoolteacher: Kulukak, Alaska, 1931-1933 (Western Frontier Library, Vol 59).

1. I ordered this book because I like reading books about teachers in various parts of the world. This book was not about teaching,but about her life in Kulukak. That part was well written, but depressing. I guess it is what life was like there. Abbie Morgan handled the depressing landscape with humor and love. I was disappointed because it was not what I was looking for, but it does not mean that it is not a good book. If you are looking for a description of 1930 Alaska, then this is your book. Morgan describes life in this town with clarity and handles lifes disappointments with grace. She was an amazing woman to have worked there.



2. A particularly moving story. This book takes place about the same time as "Tisha" but in the famed Bristol Bay Region in a village called Kulukak. It was published in 1992 and available in paperback, this book should be easy to locate.



3. I came across Arctic Schoolteacher by accident. I had taken my kids to a summer program at a county library. While we waited for the show to begin, I browsed the shelves and came across this book. I have probably read 20-30 books this year, and Arctic Schoolteacher makes the top of my list. In it, the author tells the story of how she and her husband travelled to a remote Alaskan village in the 1930s as government employees. Abbie taught school, and Ed, her husband, oversaw the reindeer herd. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but the book is filled with the numerous joys and sorrows that Abbie experienced in her two year stay in the Last Frontier. I only wish that Abbie had mentioned more about her life before Alaska, and about how she and Ed met. I am glad that the book included an epilogue by Abbie's daughter that mentions what happened in Abbie's life after Alaska.



4. 
   Abbie and Ed Morgan were adventurous and brave when they traveled to a remote Eskimo village to live among the people and serve them for two years. The actual photographs and details of their adventures are so interesting and transport the reader back to a time very different from today.
   You might also enjoy a new release, another book of courage and survival that takes place in early Alaska.
   When the Water Runs: Growing Up with Alaska

No comments about Tuck and Tucker: The Origin of the Graduate Business School.

No comments about Benjamin S. Bloom: Portraits of an Educator.

1 comments about Mrs. Magavero: A History Based on the Life of an Academic Librarian.

1. Nicely written and revealing information about the difficulties that an educated and brave women encountered in an all male college society, where quitting was not an option for her.

1 comments about The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914 (Civil War America).

1. While some in the Civil War community complain of "Chamberlain fatigue," it is difficult to gripe about this marvelous new collection of postwar correspondence from one of the most articulate officers on either side of the conflict.
   
   Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain survived the Civil War - including a horrible wound at Petersburg - to become one of Maine's most prominent citizens. His postwar career included four terms as governor of Maine, a stint as president of Bowdoin College, numerous business enterprises, and perhaps most importantly, many years as a writer and lecturer on his Civil War experiences.
   
   The correspondence included by editor Jeremiah Goulka covers nearly every aspect of Chamberlain's personal and professional life. Chamberlain's heartfelt letters to his family, especially those to his wife Fannie, reveal him to be a loving, thoughtful husband and father. His relationship with Fannie, stormy and difficult though it was for many years, survived numerous crises until Fannie's death in 1905.
   
   Chamberlain's Civil War experiences transformed him, and his separation from the army often left him feeling restless. In 1870, Chamberlain wrote to the King of Prussia and offered his services in Prussia's war with France. In 1898, Chamberlain contacted the Secretary of War to volunteer for the Spanish-American War. Even with all his postwar positions and projects, Chamberlain never quite filled the space in his soul left empty by the end of the Civil War.
   
   Critics of Chamberlain, in his lifetime and in our own time, claim that he inflated his role at Little Round Top in an attempt to horde the glory of that important engagement. At least one letter included in this volume refutes this criticism. In a January 1910 letter to Union veteran and author Oliver W. Norton, Chamberlain says of his brigade commander, Strong Vincent, "He was a noble man, and I have not known an abler commander in his grade. Nothing could exceed his skill and energy in taking the position on Little Round Top and the confidence he inspired in his subordinates. To this the result of the fight on the left at Round Top is very largely due [emphasis added]."
   
   The correspondence also clarifies an often incorrectly reported fact concerning the July 1913 fiftieth anniversary reunion at Gettysburg. Chamberlain, while he visited Gettysburg in May as a member of the planning commission, did not attend the July reunion. Chamberlain's doctor strongly urged him not to go due to his declining health, and he stayed behind in Maine.
   
   Rather than being castigated for his prolific eloquence, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain deserves the timeless thanks of everyone who studies the Civil War. Jeremiah Goulka deserves thanks as well, for his skillful editing, and for giving us a deeper understanding of a genuine American hero.

3 comments about Something's Not Right: One Family's Struggle with Learning Disabilities.

1. Reading this book as part of a class on the lives of people with disabilities, I enjoyed the book. The only thing that I would take it out of the context of the "everyday" experience was the tremendous resources this mother had for her children, three of the four with learning disabilities. (Nearly all of them went to boarding schools, while she stayed at home with them before they went away to school.) Not too technical, but a honest mother's story.



2. The National Institutes of Health estimate that 15 percent of all people have learning disabiliies. I suspect that the number is actually closer to 40-50 percent, if you include difficulties in a specific area (just in reading, math, sequencing or spatial problems). My estimate is based on how many people have trouble performing in one or more areas, even after many years of schooling and effort. For example, about 35 percent of the people in our state read in English below the 8th grade level in proficiency.

   Yet as a society, we tend to act as though everyone learns easily and effortlessly. That makes life tough on the parents and children who are having problems learning. They find that they do not always get the help and emotional support they need. Once discouraged, one can end up accepting performance below one's capability.

   If you are not learning disabled or do not have anyone in your family who is, this book will be a real eye-opener. In one family, three of four children have serious difficulties. The fourth goes on to excel at Harvard. Yet with great determination, endless effort, enormous imagination, and unending commitment, a mother is able to make progress. Some will discount her progress because she obviously had lots of financial resources. This book should be a wake-up call to all of us that we need to do more to support such families, especially when they do not have these financial resources.

   If you or someone in your family does have learning disabilities, this book will be poignant. You will feel the pain more directly. On the other hand, I hope you will grasp the book's encouraging message: Someone out there can help you or your child. But be prepared for many backward steps, side steps, and delays.

   The book mostly focuses on Brian's problems, because he was the most severely affected. As a young child, he had trouble saying words in recognizeable form. With endless energy, he was a nonstop buzz saw. He was constantly hurting himself by running into things, and creating disasters. He was slow to learn almost all of the standard motor skills and to toilet train. Learning was almost impossible for him.

   Eventually, Brian's mother comes to learn that he has no peripheral vision, has trouble conceptualizing except by touching things, needs physical sequencing to grasp order, and requires having things broken down into their simplest elements. She stays the course until these diagnoses are made, and Brian goes to the right school (after many somewhat right and many wrong ones).

   In this book, you'll encounter the independence, tradition, wishful thinking, bureaucratic, communication, disbelief, and procrastination stalls. Nancy Lelewer proves to be a champion stallbuster, and the family goes on to prosper. After he children were older she learned to develop educational games, do learning research, and write this book, despite some learning diabilities of her own. Unfortunately, her marriage did not survive all of these difficulties the children experienced. I suspect that that is not uncommon.

   The book ends with some sound prescriptions for making progress: Early diagnosis; understanding; appropriate remediation; concrete, practical tools; encouraging/reminding person to help; and possibly medication. You will also find a list of organizations that may be able to help.

   I hope everyone will read this book. The awareness the book creates will help open our eyes to the need for more individualized diagnosis and instructional methods if we are to tap the full potential of everyone!




3. This book was an eye-opening read to the world of learning disabilities. Since reading it several years ago, I have become acquainted with the author, who is an incredible person! The calendar she wrote about is available from her, and I have one in my first grade classroom. The children enjoy finding out what we're doing next by looking at the little Teddy-bear pictures. If you are the parent of young children or a teacher of pre-school through first grade, contact her for the calendar. This book is great!

5 comments about The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill.

1. This is a fascinating book. Worthen was still an undergraduate at Yale when she began it, and she brings both the idealism of youth and a mature writing style to the page. Besides being a fly on the wall at some of the most important foreign policy events of the 20th century, the reader also gets an inside view of one of Yale University's most elite communities -- the Grand Strategy program, which trains future leaders in the art of statecraft. Followers of contemporary political events will be particularly interested, since two of the Grand Strategy professors -- John Lewis Gaddis and Charles Hill -- have close contacts with, and regularly advise the Bush Administration. This is no tawdry expose of secret societies (a la Secrets of the Tomb), but an insightful look into how an experienced diplomat mentors some of the most accomplished students in our country. It also is a moving coming of age story, as Worthen learns that her mentor is as flawed and human as the famous leaders he counseled.



2. I'm sorry but I've read this book twice now and I don't know when I've had a more amateur read. I'm with Publishers Weekly on this one, this author is smart and clever and in love with her own voice but she's not a natural writer, and her apparent infatuation with Professor Hill gets tiresome after only twenty-five pages. I can imagine that students who went to Yale and took courses with Hill might enjoy reading about him. Will anyone else? His family, perhaps. To the rest of us, even after Worthen's comprehensive look at his career, he seems like a nobody who somehow wound up at the top echelons of a corrupt government and now runs pretentious power courses from a cushy academic post. Worthen gives us a charming picture of campus life at New Haven, and how a lottery system insures everyone an equal shot at studying with Professor Hill.
   
   I got the impression also that Hill was flirting with Worthen continuously, but that his passion for Norma was making him "walk the line" as Johnny Cash used to say. Hill certainly seems unabashed by Worthen's curiosity about his romantic and sex life, even urging her on to ask him some unseemly questions even Bill Clinton might have balked at, though I didn't catch if he wears boxers or briefs.
   
   The revelations about Iran/Contra are minor ones, and debatable. I hate to break it to you, Molly Worthen, but your emperor has no clothes.
   
   The Grand Strategy course he teaches, she notes breathlessly, culminates in a "Crisis Simulation" day in which students are thrown into an imaginary crisis like an outbreak of Ebola or Muslim terrorists occupying the Senate chambers. It's like a Universal Studios tour ride putting you, the tourist, into Jack Bauer's shoes on "24." And out of such theme parks our foreign policy is born.



3. This biography is the first I've read of a man I've had the privilege to know. It's also the first review on Amazon I've felt compelled to write. I applaud Worthen's ability to peg Charlie Hill. Her characterizations are 100% in my experience of man who has lived a compelling life. I recommend this book to all students of foreign policy.
   
   Yes, you can marvel at the fact that a professor buys coffee at Starbucks. I feel sorry for those who've forgotten that.



4. Charles Hill is the consumate man behind the curtain - Worthen writes a bio worthy of close examination - her writing is just lovely and shows her wisdom. - Great job.



5. For a wonderful read about a man I know, but thank you even more for articulating the hugh problem at the heart of academia today -- political correctness that has left a whole generation of students with a disfunctional inner compass. Thank God Charlie Hill decided to teach at Yale after he left the Foreign Service!
   Francie Bremer

2 comments about Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp Through the High-Flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies.

1. Milner has exceeded himself with this book. His compassionate record of the exploits and traumas of several of his friends as they hone their writing skills is superb. I refer you to page 222 for the most touching prose regarding one's journey up to and into the abyss of the dark night of one's soul. Billy Lee chose to go into the abyss and stay. Obviously Milner chose to take theever so rickety ladder out. His book is testimony to that choice.



2. I had a fun time reading this book by Jay Milner. It's a really great chronicle of the exploits of a renegade group of Texas writers, musicians, artists, and politicos, as well a chronicle of Milner's own life as a novelist, university professor, and journalist.

   Much of the fun in this book takes place in the mid 60s through mid 70s Texas, when Milner's running buddies include folks such as writers Gary Cartwright, Billie Lee Brammer, Larry L. King, and Edwin Shrake, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver turned novelist Peter Gent, and country music legends Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Kris Kristofferson.

   Since this book is also autobiographical, it would be easy for Milner to embellish the high points of his life, and choose the frames from his internal "home movie" that would be in the book. Yet Milner does no such thing. He describes his life, and the activities surrounding it, with the objectivity of a trained "old school" journalist--either in the middle of a 60s or 70s scene involving sex, drugs, and country rock and roll--or in his honest and thoughtful analysis of what he considered his own inner demons.

   Jay Milner's book is more than just a fun read. It is also a reliable history of a modern, creative period when artistic endeavors coming out of Texas began to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

   "Confessions of a Maddog" is an important work in this regard. I predict that it will be required reading in any college course involving the literature of the southwest for years to come.

   Lee Leatherwood Austin, TX 31 March 01